Canadian women's hockey team can't afford to take Finland lightly

One of the keys when you're overwhelming favourites to make it to the gold-medal game is not take your eye off the ball in the preliminary round.

Not that a defeat would be a crushing blow, but there's no question it could undermine a team's confidence.

Canada got such a wake-up call on April 1, 2017, at the world championships when, in the preliminary round, it lost 4-3 to Finland. Canada started fresh-faced goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer, opting to not dress veteran Shannon Szabados, and paid the price.

True enough, Canada rebounded to beat Finland 4-0 in the semifinals en route to winning a silver medal, but the point is, if Finland is taken lightly, there may be consequences.